Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Businesses Turn to Airbnb - NYTimes.com

A new frontier for Airbnb

"The trend is part of a growing reliance on the so-called sharing economy, which also includes companies like the Uber car service and TaskRabbit, where clients can find people to help with everyday chores and other tasks.

Although Airbnb declined to give the number of business travelers using the service, at least 55 companies are using the site to plan business trips, said Lex Bayer, who heads Airbnb’s business development. The site’s new business portal mostly excludes shared apartments and quirkier properties, like boats and tree houses, in favor of entire houses or apartments, Mr. Bayer said."